Week of Feb 5th, 2025

Work

I’m really enjoying the process of working on small, individual, self-driven things. I panic a lot because it feels like I didn’t get enough done, but it’s also nice to let myself be caught up in the details. I’m pitching for some larger contracts, which I didn’t expect to do yet. I want to take my career to a place where I’m interacting with people for my day-to-day, while still being in Engineering. Pitching for contracts feels like the opposite of that, but the process is so fun!! And the market for full-time work feels so crappy right now. Let’s give it a week and see where it goes.

Life

I played a lot of board games this week. I’ve been regularly playing board games at least once every fortnight since September 2021, but this year I decided to change how I do it. I’m only going to play games I have already played - and given the at least 50 games that still leaves me with, I feel like I’ll be okay. This no new board games sentiment is an extension of my resolution last year - no new hobbies! - which has served me so well and allowed me to go deeper into the 4378o84 interests I already have. Let’s list:

• Writing

• Reading

• Jigsaw Puzzles

• Board Games

• Computer bending

• Running

• Gym things in general

• Rap music, and separately, pop music

• Fashion (and thrifting)

• Home decor and improvement

• Video games

• Plants (sporadic)

• Crochet (sporadic)

• Tango (sporadic)

• Cooking (discontinued late last year)

• Fountain pens (discontinued a few years ago)

• Singing (discontinued a few years ago)

• Drums (discontinued a few years ago)

So you see why I’m not allowed to pick up climbing and woodworking and knitting and photography and salsa and bird watching and hiking and pottery and sewing and watercolours? Even though I desperately want to?

Health

Man, being sick is a full time job. Where can I tender my resignation? I had a viral infection on Monday and Tuesday, and as I’m writing this I’m feeling a little better but my ankle is acting up again. It is literally impossible for me to catch a break. Try not to catch a chronic illness, kids.

PSA: The newest Gardasil-9 HPV vaccine has now been indicated for men as well! If you haven’t gotten vaccinated, please do so, and please tell other men in your life. The vaccine is most effective on people who haven’t had sexual activity, but it’s efficacy exists even on people who have, up to the age of 40 years.

My mental health has been... a little all over the place. A little more than I’m used to. It’s scary but I have support and I will cope.

Learning

I’ve been in bed with a fever, which means I’ve been doing a lot of Mandarin learning! I’ve settled on the owl + memrise, with occasional help from drops. I want to learn conversational Mandarin, without caring too much for the hanzi but unfortunately most apps outside of duolingo assume you want to learn the script as well, and there’s no way to opt out of it.

Media

Watched

1. The worst rom-com I’ve ever seen - 10 things I hate about you - even though Heath Ledger was pretty hot in it. The whole plot revolves around bringing a headstrong feminist highschool girl down to heel - and she flashes her football coach to get some guy out of early detention! Ugh. Pass. My feelings are exactly this review without the cutesy bits at the end.
2. I didn’t watch the Grammys but I have been consuming so much grammy content! I love how everyone has finally realised that Taylor Swift is THE girl’s girl. Sabrina’s physical comedy. Doechii, Gaga, finally Shakira!! Everyone got their flowers. DM me for the full synopsis and for me to yell about it happily to you.
3. I LOVE the music video for ABRACADABRA - Lady Gaga’s latest single for her new album Mayhem slated to come out on March 7th!!

Read

1. Finished reading The Raven Boys and started on The Dream Thieves. It wasn’t until I was sick and randomly scrolling through goodreads that I realised... these books are written by the same person who wrote Shiver and Linger?!??! Don’t get me wrong, I had very bad taste as a child - I reread the Harry Potter series like 7 times and the Twilight series about 4 times. I ate 250 page YA romantasy for breakfast. But even I didn’t touch the copies that were passing around during after school and at break time. I couldn’t move forward after this realisation, I had to laugh and DNF the rest of the series. It wasn’t a bad series, but I’m not sure it was going to be worth a hundred hours of my time. So I read the synopsis on wikipedia to answer my questions and called it a day.
2. I started reading Bunny by Mona Awad. So far the MC is quite unlikeable, but I think that’s the point. It’s not a pleasant read, so I have to make time for it instead of just popping it on when I’m making a cup of coffee.